May 04, 2014

To share my life with the rest of the world has always been satisfying, almost a necessity, I would say. My memory is working in quite arbitrary ways, and what I end up remembering seldom turns out to be worthwhile. Writing helps, of course, and I would be lying if I say that my journals at home aren't part of my open bookshelf, at your disposal, if you feel like coming over. The last time I wrote about taking chances, and I took quite a few since then. I ended up in a new city and continued studying, met a hundred few new people and made a myriad of staggering friends, got an apartment and a black Spanish cat, an almost functioning bicycle, and on top of it all managed to find a shampoo that makes my hair more shiny. It's really not that bad.

The Hague is an ambiguous place. You turn into a cobble stone road and see tiny brick houses with dark blue, crooked window frames, you look inside and want to take part in what seems to be sole contentment, transpiring behind the glass. People know how to live well in these parts of the world. The Plein and Grote Markt are filled with untroubled minds, and drinking in the early afternoon sun has become a less unorthodox phenomenon. You stroll around a corner and the cobble stones keep leading the way, more Ikea-colored drapes and unwilted flowers gracing serene window sills (I am thinking that I haven't seen anything blossoming inside my home ever since I moved in), and then you realize: everything that's missing in your life can be found behind that glass. You turn a corner and another one, and here you are, surrounded by government constructions and less entrancing livelihood. The big white town hall structures, the unforgiving reality of the Turfmarkt being everything but "turf", the city center that is desperately drowning in modernity. The Hague is an international city, it has the responsibility to be representative and to appease to the outside as this really competent place. In the meantime, I moved into a small one-bedroom apartment close to a gracht, and a 5 minute bike ride from campus. Pink walls, a necessity, flower patterns, candles, golden mirrors, long white curtains covering those bay windows, and, of course, cat toys scattered all over the living room floor. I've made it quite cozy, but I am missing a stable income and a book shelf. For now, things are working. Almost 10 months it has been, and I can hardly believe that the time has been running by so quickly. I wish there was a way to share all of what happened in those 10 months in one blog post. But it is impossible, and I can only pretend to try. Being creative when extremely happy is difficult for someone like me. So I have been too happy, perhaps. And it rains a lot in the Netherlands. A lot.